It is really stupid to have good information about bilharzia buried in a thread that has thousands of posts. A lot of that was interesting, and no one who was not following the bilharzia discussion in the Froome thread yesterday will ever read that discussion.

To buttress what was posted yesterday, I pulled this from a recent post on Slowtwitch:

If schistosomasis/bilharzia was diagnosed in 2010, Froome should have been given the one day treatment and it should have no longer been an issue. The only reported occurrences of when the initial treatment does not eradicate the infection is when a heavy worm burden is in the system (i.e. a lot of worms infected Froome.) Even in those cases, treatment does not drag on for 18 months+. A heavy worm burden would also make the symptoms more severe than "I was always getting little colds and coughs, nothing serious".

Thus, it's unlikely to claim that it's still in his system (as of January according to the above article), unless he got re-infected by continuing to come into contact with contaminated waters. Given his reported history with this infection, that would be stupid.

There are other inconsistencies with the claims given:"It’s not something that just disappears. It’s a parasite. It lays eggs. They might be dormant, then the eggs hatch, then they lay more eggs" - Completely false: Eggs laid in humans do not, and cannot hatch; they can only hatch in fresh water (after being excreted by humans). They also need interaction with snails before the hatched eggs can infect humans again. Source: Under Pathophysiology/Life Cycle - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schistosomiasis, also fairly common knowledge for those familiar with the infection.

Biltricide "basically kills everything in your system" - also false, same link above about the treatment under Adverse Effects - "In general BILTRICIDE is very well tolerated. Side effects are usually mild and transient and do not require treatment." Thus, a week of not being able to ride his bike is a ridiculous statement.

I'm not sure why they would lie to / misinform us about something like this...".

Great post. I really don't get why the media aren't asking these questions/finding out about the illness and treatment. If time has told us anything, it's not to believe the word of cycling teams and their PR statements.

Thanks for posting separately, I missed this one in the Froome thread. Informative...

edit: My first thought is that this is an excellent way to re-establish a baseline for the BioPassport, i.e. please ignore all the #'s we have on this guy, he had/has a RBC-killing disease that we're still working to control.

The Father of Clean Cycling, Christophe Bassons wrote:When I look at cycling today, I get the impression that history is repeating itself: riders who are supposed to be rouleurs are climbing passes at the front of the race, and those who are supposed to be climbers are riding time trials at more than 50 kilometres per hour.

But we're then believing that Froome was developing his skill set (to the point where, were it not for the illness, he'd be becoming a GT contender) but the illness was simply preventing him from reaching that. Not only that but as his skill set increased, the vice-like grip of the illness got worse so that despite improving as a bike rider his results were actually worsening.

Then, the illness suddenly was treated when his contract was due, and he was able to use all of the skills he'd picked up over the last 3 years clandestinely and without anybody ever noticing, and turned into a GT podium rider. You'd have thought that even as he was physically unable to produce the same results, he might have been able to at least stagnate by compensating with improved nous.

It's just too many leaps of faith for a transformation so absurd. The Alpe d'Huez day that mastersracer points out showed enough promise to say that Froome could be a decent pro bike rider, but it's nothing like enough to say that suddenly materialising into a guy who would have won two GTs had it not been for bonus seconds or being hampered by his own team - and who is now seen as the elite climber in the péloton bar none - is not utterly ridiculous. Remember: Emanuele Sella had a good day in the mountains an awful lot before 2008. He still looked ridiculous when that year rolled around.

Change the flag next to his name. Make it a Spanish one. He doesn't have to be a genuine Spaniard as you could then make the argument of growing up with cycling - he could be Argentine or something, like Flecha. Now how's he looking? I have a chaque he wouldn't have so many defenders in the Clinic, and the thread about him would have petered out in a few pages of people agreeing that he was doping.

'The medication used to treat schistosomiasis is called praziquantel..... A single dose of praziquantel is usually required....Steroid medication (corticosteroids) can also be used to relieve the symptoms of acute schistosomiasis.....A further stool sample may be taken after four to six weeks to check whether there are still any eggs in your stools. If eggs are present, a further dose of praziquantel may be given.

Would it be possible to edit the OP as people add to the thread to have all the inconsistencies/relevant info grouped together for ease of reference?

Also there was a very good timeline of Froome/Sky interviews and quotes with links and dates posted last night

BroDeal wrote:It is really stupid to have good information about bilharzia buried in a thread that has thousands of posts. A lot of that was interesting, and no one who was not following the bilharzia discussion in the Froome thread yesterday will ever read that discussion.

To buttress what was posted yesterday, I pulled this from a recent post on Slowtwitch:

My wife works as a post-doc studying infectious diseases, primarily researching schistosomiasis - which is the more common, scientific name for bilharzia.The treatment for schistosomiasis/bilharzia is biltricide (Praziquantel) as mentioned, but the treatment is a one-day treatment. Reference here: http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/...75b1916b8#nlm34068-7 under dosage and adminsitration.

If schistosomasis/bilharzia was diagnosed in 2010, Froome should have been given the one day treatment and it should have no longer been an issue. The only reported occurrences of when the initial treatment does not eradicate the infection is when a heavy worm burden is in the system (i.e. a lot of worms infected Froome.) Even in those cases, treatment does not drag on for 18 months+. A heavy worm burden would also make the symptoms more severe than "I was always getting little colds and coughs, nothing serious".

Thus, it's unlikely to claim that it's still in his system (as of January according to the above article), unless he got re-infected by continuing to come into contact with contaminated waters. Given his reported history with this infection, that would be stupid.

There are other inconsistencies with the claims given:"It’s not something that just disappears. It’s a parasite. It lays eggs. They might be dormant, then the eggs hatch, then they lay more eggs" - Completely false: Eggs laid in humans do not, and cannot hatch; they can only hatch in fresh water (after being excreted by humans). They also need interaction with snails before the hatched eggs can infect humans again. Source: Under Pathophysiology/Life Cycle - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schistosomiasis, also fairly common knowledge for those familiar with the infection.

Biltricide "basically kills everything in your system" - also false, same link above about the treatment under Adverse Effects - "In general BILTRICIDE is very well tolerated. Side effects are usually mild and transient and do not require treatment." Thus, a week of not being able to ride his bike is a ridiculous statement.

I'm not sure why they would lie to / misinform us about something like this...".

Ha ha,nice one,just copied my reply over from the other thread +1 on a Badzilla thread,good to see this has been picked up elsewhere.

As mentioned before the only reason i can see as a layman for continued treatment would be if the Dawg made regular trips to Africa and it was a prophylatic treatment.They are specifically saying its still in his system though ruling that out.

As everyone knows the disease is given as a reason for his lack of performance pre 2011.Fair enough, he was sick and got better with treatment,why drag it out like this ?

I can't see what material advantage is to be gained by maintaining that he still has it in his system nearly 3 years on..

Some might speculate of course !

I'm still suprised that no journalist has pulled them up on this since there seems to be clear contradictions.